Terrorism Colleague of Montco's 'Jihad Jane' Gets 8 Years in Prison
By Paul Kurtz
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- A Colorado woman who was a terrorist cell colleague of "Jihad Jane" was sentenced today to eight years in prison.
Dressed in green prison clothes and wearing a black headscarf, Jamie Paulin Ramirez wept in US District Court in Philadelphia as she told Judge Patrice Tucker that she'd made a terrible mistake and regretted every moment of her time spent in Ireland.
Ramirez, 35, had traveled to Europe in 2009 with her six-year-old son to support her husband, Ali Charaf Damache, an Algerian jihadist-in-training.
In begging for leniency, Ramirez said that Damache had physically abused the boy while indoctrinating him to the ways of killing non-Muslims.
But prosecutors countered with a home video that Ramirez took of the boy, dressed in mujahedeen garb and brandishing toy weapons, as she asked what to do to non-believers.
"Shoot and poke," he responded.
Ramirez initially faced 15 years behind bars, but the feds decided to give Ramirez a break for helping them investigate Damache and others, including Colleen LaRose, better known as "Jihad Jane."
LaRose, of Pennsburg, Pa., was given a ten-year prison sentence on Monday (see related story). Damache is still in prison back in Ireland, fighting extradition to the US.
